Burning Bridges
by sdbubbles
Summary: "Last night we talked of old times; families and hometowns; she wondered if we'd both agree on where we'd settle down; and I told her that we'd cross that bridge whenever it arrived; now through the flames I see her standing on the other side." It's New Year's Eve and Ric is reflecting on his friendship with Serena, and what she actually means to him.


**A/N: This is set the night of "Ring In The New," so Hogmanay, and you'll just have to pretend Serena has the good sense not to drink and drive.**

**The song is "Burning Bridges" by Garth Brooks - one of my dad's favourite songs.**

**Also this is for Lee because she's adorable :P**

**Sarah x**

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_Yesterday she thanked me  
For oiling that front door  
This morning when she wakes  
She won't be thankful anymore_

"Take me home, Ric," Serena said out of the blue. "Please. I'm too tired to drive, plus I've had a drink. I'll end up wrapped around a tree." Ric nodded and picked up his keys and coat. Serena, he realised, was still having sleepless nights over the mess she was still crawling out of. The presence of an alcoholic ex-husband on the other end of a phone line probably wasn't helping with that. "Thanks," she smiled.

He knew she would think nothing of it by morning, but he wouldn't have agreed had he not cared about her. He waited for her to put her own coat on before ushering her gently out of the office. "Come on," he sighed.

By the time they got in the house, it was clear that the heating was broken too. "This is just not my time, is it?" Ric smiled slightly at her and realised he was going to have to help her deal with the short term implications of a shot heating system. He walked into the living room to find a neglected hearth; he felt her presence behind him and turned to find her eyeing the fireplace with apprehension. "Confession," she said in almost a whisper. "I'm not great with fires. Either there's not enough fire or there's too much. And I don't fancy burning my house down." Ric smirked at her. "It was always Edward's job. Brilliant idea, letting a drunk play with fire," she mumbled.

"Is that your roundabout way of asking me to do it?" Ric asked.

"Would you?" she asked with a slight wince at admitting a slight weakness.

"Where's the firewood?" he sighed, seeing the coal bucket was full. Her lips turned up at the edges only slightly, the closest to a true smile Ric had seen from her since she had broke up with Edward. She led him outside to the shed and opened the door to reveal it was filled with firewood. They both took an armful and Ric muttered, "You need to invest in a wood bunker and a wheelbarrow."

He thought she hadn't heard him until they reached the fireplace again. "I think any wood bunker I built would collapse in under a week, don't you?" With that she walked away to the kitchen, presumably for wine and some form of fattening food.

_She'll never know how much I cared_  
_Just that I couldn't stay_  
_She'll never know the reason why_  
_I always run away_

He set about starting the fire with coal and wood – a task easier than he thought it would be since there was a packet of firelighters there, though the flames remained too small for his liking. "Have you got a newspaper?" he shouted to Serena.

"There should be one from last week under the coffee table!" she called back. He looked and found it, and as he heard her footsteps approach he opened up the paper and put it over the front of the fireplace. "No, don't do that!" Serena protested.

"What?" he demanded. He pulled the paper away. "Don't tell me you've never had to draw a fire before?" She looked sheepish and he grinned, "What a sheltered life you've led." He eyed the bottle and glass in her hands with unease, as well as the massive bag of crisps under her arm. The last thing they needed was to start drinking together.

She lifted the bottle slightly and said, "Stay? Just for a while?"

"I can't," he replied. But the look on her face told him she felt rejected by his refusal. "I shouldn't," he corrected. He was reluctant to stay because he always was drawn to Serena, and he didn't want either of them to do anything they would later regret. He hesitated because he cared, but he doubted very much that she understood that. He didn't expect her to understand that he fought what he felt for her because this time was not the right time, and she had been through enough lately. He didn't want to confuse or upset her any further than she already was.

Her eyes were momentarily soft, and it swayed him.

"Alright. But not too long."

_Burning bridges  
One by one  
What I'm doing  
Can't be undone  
And I'm always hoping someday  
I'm gonna stop this running round  
But every time the chance comes up  
Another bridge goes down_

They sat down on the rug, right in front of the fire and the only real source of heat in the otherwise cold house. "You need to deal with your central heating," he said.

"I'll do it tomorrow," she said. "I can't be bothered playing phone tag with an idiot who'll just put me through to another idiot, who'll put me through to another idiot, who's going to tell me the wrong thing anyway."

"You're in a good mood," he commented sarcastically. She made a face at him as she poured him a glass of wine. "Thanks," he took it from her gently. He didn't think this was wise, but maybe Serena would somehow prove that staying here would do no damage. She was so guarded that it was a major task to see what effect he actually had on her, and what she really thought of him. She drank deeply from her wine glass and he could see there was still much she wished to forget.

He smiled slightly despite his unease. It wasn't that he didn't like her company; in fact, he quite often enjoyed being around her, particularly when they joked and picked at each other so much anyone sane would have called it flirting. But she was not in the mood for flirting. She was not exactly an open book but what he could see was what she could not hide.

He could see that jokes would do her no good tonight, and that this was not how she had wanted to spend New Year's Eve. He looked at the clock to find it was after ten already. Had he been asked to stay because she didn't want to see in the New Year alone? Eleanor was no doubt at a party, and Serena would have intended to spend tonight with Edward prior to Christmas Eve's fiasco.

_Last night we talked of old times_  
_Families and home towns_  
_She wondered if we both agree on_  
_Where we'd settle down_

"You know, I've known you quite a while now and I still don't know that much about you," he accused lightly.

"You know all you need to," she muttered over the crackling of the fire. She looked up and he held her gaze; to his surprise, she did not look away from him. "Why would you _want_ to know?" she demanded quietly.

He smiled. "You're my friend," he allowed. "Am I not permitted to know who my friends are?" She shifted uncomfortably, crossing her legs as she tried not to spill any wine. "You've never said where you're from, or where you've lived. Where you would like to spend the rest of your life."

"Neither have you," she retorted. It was only now she mentioned it that he realised she was right enough. They only piece of his past he had shared with her was his late son, Leo, and how he had died. "Go on then," she urged him.

"Ghana. Everywhere. Here," he listed simply. He was not a complicated man in these terms; he knew where his home was at almost any given moment, only wavering when his life was shaken up.

"Hmm," she mused. She opened the bag of crisps and started eating in quiet contemplation. When she finally spoke, her words surprised him. "Surrey. I spent a lot of my life in Surrey. And America," she added, acknowledging her time at Harvard. She looked straight at him. "I don't think I know how to settle down anymore. Especially if there's nobody left to settle _with_." Her pessimism startled him. It wasn't usually so potently visible that she was lonelier than she tried to pretend. She was not invincible. She was a woman walking the line, just as everyone else did every day.

_And I told her that we'd cross that bridge_  
_Whenever it arrived_  
_Now through the flames I see her standing_  
_On the other side_

Instinctively reached out and patted her leg softly. "That all comes with time," he assured her.

Her responding laugh was not happy or even amused. It was bitter as she sneered at herself for being in a situation that resulted in her sitting here with him in a house where her husband and daughter absent from the family home and, to top it all off, she had no heating. He saw her point, but other people and mechanical operations were beyond her control. "Do you realise how many years I've been trying to settle, Ric?" she asked him. He shook his head in silence. "Too many."

An hour quickly passed as they quietly stared into the fire, topping it up with coal and wood, drawing it occasionally – something Serena clearly hated him doing – and saying very little to each other. He should not have felt so comfortable in such silence, but he did. This was longer than he had intended to stay.

Every time he looked into the flames, he saw himself with Serena, a smile on her face and her eyes bright and happy. He was beginning to understand the part of himself that cared about Serena a little better; she was a beautiful woman, most definitely, but that wasn't what drew him in. What drew him towards her was her intelligence and her wit, however cutting it often was, her strength and her capacity to love – something he had seen for himself while observing her with her daughter, her mother and Edward.

He wanted her to smile again, because the miserable ghost Edward had left in her eyes was not the woman he knew. She still walked the line but she was stumbling; the woman who walked the line clearly didn't want to walk it on her own anymore.

_Burning bridges  
One by one  
What I'm doing  
Can't be undone  
And I'm always hoping someday  
I'm gonna stop this running round  
But every time the chance comes up  
Another bridge goes down_

In a room lit only by a fire, her face was oddly shadowed, and the dark light hid nothing. It brought out the frustration and sadness in her eyes, the flames dancing on the dark brown canvas behind. He shouldn't have brought up anything so personal. He could tell that he had upset her. It seemed every time he decided to dig deeper he hit a nerve.

One day he would hit the wrong nerve and she would never want to see him again. Her prerogative, of course, but he would have hated that to happen. She was someone he was on a level footing with, who could go toe-to-toe with him in any situation and who had advantages over him as well as the deficits they wordlessly acknowledged.

At ten to midnight he said, "I should go." They had been in a polite and comfortable silence for well over an hour by now, and he knew she must have been needing her bed, since she had exhausted herself tonight. She had managed to attempt a day's work, mess up in theatre, beat herself up about it, pretend to almost everyone that she was alright and admit defeat, and he could see just how much it had taken out of her.

"You don't have to," she murmured into her glass. He shot her a questioning look. After all, their conversation was practically non-existent. "I like your company," she admitted, not taking her gaze from the flames. The quiet was perhaps what she needed.

Whether it was strengthening or weakening their relationship, tonight had an impact and it was surely irreversible.

_Like ashes on the water_  
_I drift away in sorrow_  
_Knowing that the day my lesson's finally learned_  
_I'll be standing at a river_  
_Staring out across tomorrow_  
_And the bridge I'd need to get there_  
_Will be a bridge that I have burned_

He turned to watch her and allowed himself to take her hand in his. "It's the New Year," he said. "It's time to leave all this year's heartache behind you – that means your disputes with Eleanor and your mother and Edward – and look forward to your future."

Her smile was slight, and it was very much tainted, but it was there. She was hauntingly beautiful in the flickering light of the fire, and her eyes were glazed slightly, obviously lost in thought. She looked down at their joined hands; he smiled a little at her and she looked up at him. When would he ever learn to man up and say the right things to her? Usually by omission, it seemed what he did for Serena was never the right thing. One day he would need her and she would not be there, because one day he would inevitably hurt her as much as Edward.

Silence began to scream at him to make a move, any move, to let her know that she did mean something to him. Her hand wriggled free of his and she wiped the single tear that she allowed to fall down her cheek away, and he knew she would refuse to shed any more for Edward Campbell.

She was one of those people he knew he should probably have been staying away from, for their own sakes, but he followed her still. They seemed to always end up opposite each other, whether as comrades or as adversaries. And each and every single time, there was no way to get across to stand with her. The crossings were there but he was too wary to start walking, and one day he would collapse them all until they were both stranded on opposite sides.

_Burning bridges  
One by one  
What I'm doing  
Can't be undone  
And I'm always hoping someday  
I'm gonna stop this running round  
But every time the chance comes up  
Another bridge goes down  
_

There was a beep from his phone as midnight struck, and it spilt the silence in two with its shrill tone. "Happy New Year," he wished her with a smile. She looked away from the fire once more and stared into his face.

"Happy New Year," she replied gently. He tentatively put his arms around her and pulled her into a tight and slightly awkwardly positioned hug. He could feel her return his embrace, her face pressed into his neck and her fingers clutching at his top. He realised only now that what she hated the most was sitting in her house completely alone. That was why she had kept him here. That was why she was clinging to him as tightly as her strength allowed.

He didn't see her as any weaker for it; in fact, her silent admission made his respect for her grow exponentially, but he didn't like that she could be so lonely. He sighed and pressed a gentle kiss onto her jaw. It made her move, presumably so she was able to see his expression. He eyes were fixed on hers as she leaned in slightly making her intentions clear. He allowed himself to move in without a word. It was only when he felt her nose pressed against his that he came to his senses and realised that to kiss Serena tonight could not be a good idea.

So instead he smiled slightly and pulled her into another cuddle even tighter than the first; her face was buried into his neck again, her fingers clutching at the back of his shirt, her arms wrapped around him.

It wasn't that he didn't want her. He did. But she was only a week out of a disaster of a relationship with Edward, and she was still hurting from it. To kiss her would be to change the definition of the relationship they shared. The change would have been impossible to undo, and he wasn't willing to risk their friendship for it.

_Another bridge goes down _

So he burned the bridge that led him straight to her side. But here he built the foundations of another bridge, a longer, stronger bridge, that he did not doubt he would eventually end up crossing to stand by Serena Campbell.

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to drop me a review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


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